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I'm curious, how would you describe Segway's current reputation?
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An american company with a product unmatched, even after all these years, in reliability and technical innovation. hence, all the chinese knockoffs.
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Well, Segway was, until late 2013, a
UK-owned company.
Serious "technical innovation" of the HT/PT products essentially ended in 2006, with the release of the I2. There's been nothing since that qualifies as "technical innovation", in my book. The basic concept of a balanced inverted pendulum is AGES old. Engineering students sometimes have to create their own inverted pendulum control systems as part of their curriculum. To his credit, Dean Kamen/Segway patented the implementation of the inverted pendulum into the two-wheel, self-balancing products. That, and LeanSteer, form the basis of their patent protection, and have (largely) protected Segway from competitors building two-wheeled self-balancing rides.
Regarding reliability, how reliable ARE Segs? Anyone who visits this site regularly can point to known issues that have affected reliability in the past, so Segs are not perfect. The radio killing the rear battery is a good example!
I am not aware of any published quality reports, such as Dead-On-Arrival or Customer Initial Quality Satisfaction reports. How does Segway reliability compare to their competition? Is there anyone on this forum who has facts to substantiate "unmatched reliability", or is this just an individual perception?
Finally, there are a lot of complaints about service. Many dealers seem to be incapable of actually working on Segs. Far too many issues require the Segs to be sent back to the factory, instead of being fixed locally.